Making Combat More Interesting

In my experience, combat is the most complex part of role-playing games. So I can't blame a Game Master for losing sight of everything else but the rules and the numbers. Nevertheless, it's in combat that I see a lot of good game sessions devolve into elaborate number crunching.

The easiest and simplest way to make combat in your games more exciting is to remember that combat scenes are like any other scenes in your game. They require you to describe the actions and characters involved. Every round of combat is like a miniature scene unto itself, and that makes it an opportunity for you to show how a given enemy reacts to a fight, how they attack or defend themselves, what tactics they prefer, and so on.

It's not as hard as you might think to make combat descriptive. Let the dice be your guide. A failed attack can become a hair-splittingly close dodge or a mighty parried blow. An exceptional success can become a major wound that might leave a scar. I'm not suggesting your description impact any game mechanics. It doesn't need to. What it adds is flavor. Ideally, combat descriptions will tie back into the general feel of the game. A high adventure fantasy game might include lots of dramatic maneuvers and lightning fast parries. A gritty horror game's combat might include disturbingly vivid descriptions of gore and blood.

Another way to make combat in your games more exciting is to pre-plan and vary the tactics of the PC's foes. This works especially well if they're going to be fighting a lot of similar enemies. It's okay if you don't know the first thing about real military tactics. Try doing a bit of web research into actual historical battles to give you some ideas, or just think of your favorite action sequences from films and let them inspire you. But varied tactics not only keep the PCs on their toes, they allow different types of characters to show off their strengths instead of just relying on the "bash-and-slash, frontal assault" types.